Maintenance Plan: Steven Kee’s Grateful Patient Story

As a former auto mechanic, Steven Kee knows the value of regular maintenance. As a lung cancer survivor, he knows that the same principles apply when it comes to his long-term health.

In fact, according to a research study published in the National Library of Medicine, 30 percent of patients who’d had stage 1-3 lung cancer at the time of the study had their cancer recur. And while rates of recurrence vary widely by stage and type of cancer, life-long vigilance is a must for anyone who’s already battled the disease.

That’s what kept Steven in regular contact with Mount Carmel Pulmonologist Dr. Havel Saadla, who’d assumed his care after the surgeon who performed his original lobectomy retired. He’d been having annual CT scans since 2001 and things had remained pretty clean. Until they weren’t.

“Maybe 10 years ago they happened to see some what they called ground glass nodules in there,” Steven recalled. “They weren't large enough to do anything with, so they decided to continue to watch them.”

A few years ago, those knots had grown a little, and last fall it was clear they’d grown even more. That’s when Dr. Saadla recommended a PET scan. Unfortunately, the two spots they’d been watching showed up as possibly cancerous. That’s when Dr. Saadla referred him to radiation oncologist Dr. Malolan Rajagopalan at Mount Carmel Grove City.

“Dr. Raj,” as Steven and his wife Susan affectionately call Dr. Rajagopalan, has overseen Steven’s care since the diagnosis, and their experience has been – in their words – absolutely amazing.

“Dr. Raj is super,” Steven said. “He breaks it right down to the nuts and bolts, you know. The same for everyone else at Grove City. They’ve been excellent. Everybody over there has always been super nice and helpful. They work their butts off to try to schedule when it’s easy for us.”

Susan, who worked in hospital human resources for 25 years, knows great people and great service when she sees them. She concurred.

“Dr. Raj is absolutely amazing,” she added. “But so is everyone we’ve worked with. From the receptionist to Jessica, his nurse – everyone does such a great job of being welcoming and kind but also explaining everything in a way that makes sense.”

And there was a lot to make sense of.

Dr. Rajagopalan presented them with three treatment options to consider: biopsy, surgical removal, or radiation. But based on the position of the cancer and Steven being on the clot inhibitor Plavix for some vascular issues, the first two options would be riskier.

“My husband had always sworn he’d never have chemotherapy or radiation,” Susan recalled, “but Dr. Raj made him comfortable enough that that was the best option to go with at this point.”

“We did 5 sessions of the radiation,” Steven said, “which was my choice and the simplest to start with in my opinion. Now we’re just kind of on hold waiting to see how the treatment did. Then we’ll do another CT scan and see if that thing has grown or shrunk or not. Then we’ll see what Dr. Raj recommends from there.”

After that you’ll likely find the Canal Winchester snowbirds headed south for the winter. But they’ll do so knowing that being consistent with Steven’s ongoing care and maintenance was the best retirement investment they could have made. And that they’ll always have expert, kind, compassionate care to count on here at home.